Study Finds on How Pollution, Cigarette Smoke Damage Airways

The researchers believe that such new insights may help develop therapeutics to combat pollution- and smoke-related diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic asthma

During the study, chemicals found in cigarette smoke were shown to activate signalling in nerves that ended in the airways of guinea pigs.

The researchers could abolish the effects they observed by using a molecule that inhibited a protein known as TRPA1.

Consistent with a central role for TRPA1 in sensing chemicals in cigarette smoke, no signaling in nerves that end in the airways was observed in mice lacking TRPA1 after exposure to the chemicals in cigarette smoke.

The study also revealed that alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehydes were the chemicals that activated TRPA1, suggesting that such chemicals might contribute to the airway damage that occurs in smoke-related diseases.

Source-ANI
SRM